


Served Cold

by Kadorienne



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Love Triangle, M/M, Past Loki/Thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 03:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kadorienne/pseuds/Kadorienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki has spent two centuries preparing his revenge over Thor leaving him for Jane Foster. Now it is at last in his grasp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Served Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Heather Sparrows, Anne-Li and Grey Bard for betaing!

Loki was going to have so much fun when he was free to be a villain again. Not a day went by without him thinking of some brilliant way of terrifying his intellectual inferiors (that was, everybody) or stealing some dazzling magical artifact or seizing some throne or other, but he had to settle for making people see snakes that weren't there and other such tame amusements. 

His fool of a brother believed he had _reformed_ Loki. Hah.

Loki's behavior had been exemplary for the past two centuries, it was true. The worst thing he had done in that time was turning Fandral's hair oil into lard (thus costing him the affection of a lady of Nornheim he had pursued for a long while). But this was not because he had seen the error of his ways. His good conduct was in the service of a devious plan, one worth decades of self-restraint because of the sweetness of the prize.

And very soon, he would have that prize.

Two centuries had passed since Loki had abandoned his brief career in supervillainy, as a failed destroyer of worlds. He had reformed for one reason and one reason alone: he missed Thor. Missed squabbling with him, missed adventuring with him, missed bedding him. And so he had placated Thor by giving up his own pursuits to fight evil-doers at his brother's side. Not that he had cared one way or the other about good and evil. He was simply tired of not having Thor in his bed. And of being on the run. If a show of contrition was what could win his lover back - and convince the various authorities not to go to the considerable trouble of trying to imprison a powerful sorcerer - so be it. He had unleashed his magic and his knives on whomever Thor and his pet humans had decreed he should, and reaped the rewards every night.

Well, not _every_ night. And that had been the trouble.

It wasn't as if Loki _minded_ Thor having a mistress. The trouble was that he could tell, long before his idiot brother realized it, that Thor was falling in love with the woman. The human. Jane Foster. Who was used to the customs of Midgard and was not going to share Thor with his brother if she could help it. Loki tried to stop their romance. He tried to distract Thor from her, tried to make him forget her. To no avail.

And then one day Thor had come to him with that hangdog expression that said, _I am about to do something terrible to you, please make it easier for me by being brave about it._ Thor had fidgeted and licked his lips and tried to find something to say.

"Stop trying to find a way to put it gently," Loki had snapped after Thor had stood silent and awkward for too long. "There is no gently for something like this. Just say what you have to say."

Thor had swallowed. "Jane has... we have decided to marry."

 _Marriage._ Worse than Loki had suspected. That woman, that _mortal_ was forging the one bond with Thor that Loki could not. "You realize she'll be dead in a few decades."

Thor had looked down at his hands, then forced himself to meet Loki's gaze again. "Father has given his permission - last night I gave her one of Idunn's apples."

Loki had stood frozen, feeling sick. Foster's mortality had been his one ray of hope for the past few years. But this - this meant that Thor really did love her. Had asked the All-Father for special favors concerning her. Bestowed the greatest of gifts upon her, and she now needed Thor as Loki, with his magic and his already secured immortality, never would. The bastard. How could Loki compete with that? He could not. Impossible.

Thor had taken a step closer to him. "Loki...."

"Get out."

Of course Thor hadn't gotten out, had stayed and tried to apologize, so Loki had teleported himself away to a barren desert in a sparsely populated region of Midgard where there was no one to see or care as he blasted boulders to rubble and screamed at the sky. 

Which he did for a day or so, while mad incoherent plans for retaliation chased each other through his brain. He would become a supervillain again. He would conquer half the planets in the Nine Realms and everyone would be mad at Thor for letting his childish infatuation drive Loki back to evil. He would kill him. He would kill _her_. He would kill everyone. He would kill himself. He would kill no one, just make himself such a nuisance - destroying _things_ , great monuments and landmarks on every world he could reach - that he would still be the bane of the Nine without one (more) drop of blood on his hands.

At last the initial fury had run itself out and Loki had curled up exhausted in a tiny cave to rest. To ponder. And there, after he knew not how many days of brooding, he at last devised the perfect plan of revenge. One that would be many years in the making, but infinitely subtler and more cutting than any mayhem he might wreak.

He had returned to Thor the moment his new plan was formed, not even bothering to wash the dust and sand from himself, or smooth his wild hair, or straighten his now somewhat tattered clothes. Let Thor see just how miserable he was.

Thor was alone in his room of the Avengers Tower, polishing his armor. As soon as Loki appeared he dropped it and jumped to his feet. "Loki!" He studied him anxiously, taking in Loki's disheveled state.

Loki swallowed, licked his dry lips. "Thor." His voice was rasping from the days in the wilderness. "We... we were brothers for centuries before we were anything else." Not trying to hide his tears, he whispered, "I cannot lose my brother again."

And Thor had crushed him in a warm and overenthusiastic embrace, which Loki returned with a muffled sob he did not even have to feign.

"Good," Thor said, his voice muffled. "I hated being an only child."

His face buried in Thor's golden hair, Loki had smiled grimly to himself. Oh, but Thor was going to rue this day.

Loki had been the perfect brother after that. Tearfully brave. Sad and loving. He had continued to fight at Thor's side. Never had he permitted himself the slightest hint of trying to lure Thor back to his bed, even when, after several decades, he thought he might have been successful. He had offered Jane his friendship, and when she graciously accepted it, he _gave_ it to her. He talked with her of the workings of the universe, of the twin forces of science and magic. He helped her navigate Asgardian society and listened to her frustrations with it, and with her adorable exasperating oaf of a husband. No woman ever had a more devoted brother-in-law.

Little by little, as the years passed, Loki allowed the sadness to leave his glances, until Thor and Jane saw only warmth and affection in his eyes. Until they both believed that he no longer harbored the least hurt or jealousy in his black icy heart.

Amazing, that anyone could believe that the God of Mischief ever forgot a grudge.

All of his considerable patience had been required, but eventually it had come to pass. Jane, his own brother's wife, was his mistress. He was tempted to expose her adultery the very day it first happened, perhaps cut off her hair in the old disused fashion for shaming unfaithful wives, but it wasn't enough. Not for what had been taken from him. He hadn't minded... much... when she was merely bedding Thor. But then she had stolen Thor's _heart_ from him. And so he would steal hers. Only when he was thoroughly tangled in her emotions, only when she had been betraying Thor for years, would he let Thor know. Let him learn what it was to have the one you loved enticed away from you. Let them both learn how foolish it was to love, to trust. Let them try to rebuild their marriage on the ruins. Let them see if their broken hearts could ever be repaired. Loki would make certain they could not.

He thought the time was ripe, now. He waited only for the perfect moment to arrange for Thor to stumble upon his wife in his brother's arms. To watch the look in his brother's eyes when he was betrayed by those who loved him most.

And after that? Well. No more adolescent heroics of the sort Thor was so fond of, that was for certain. He would do what he liked. He would fight only for himself, not for someone else's notion of glory or honor. Perhaps he would conquer Midgard, if only because that was the Realm that had spawned his rival for his brother's affections. Then again, ruling humans was a bore, a great deal of work for very little reward. More fun might be had by tricking the humans into giving him things that he wanted, like magical objects gathering dust in museums because mortals didn't know of the power in them, or just a bit of the respect that was his due. For decades he had been laughing in his sleeve at how the humans fell all over him and his brother in gratitude when they did the simplest feats, such as banishing demons back to the nether realms or slaying extraterrestrial sea serpents. Really, it was almost too easy. 

Whatever he chose to do, most likely he would be deemed a villain again. Thor would consider himself honor-bound to put a stop to his doings, not that he would succeed. That could be amusing; Thor would deliver one of his ringing speeches about how it was his duty to halt Loki's reign of terror, and Loki would ask sweetly, "Are you certain you are not just angry because I bedded your wife?" If Loki's activities didn't happen to be too dire, Thor might even seriously ask himself if that were the case. Thor in a moral dilemma was always good for a laugh, the more so because it was difficult to get one past his supernally thick skull.

The thought had a smile on his lips as he entered his supposed study, which actually was the room where he and Jane made their assignations. She rose as he shut the door behind him, but without her usual smile, and his own died. Had Thor found out on his own, somehow? Thor wasn't a _complete_ idiot... not always. Or had the silly girl taken it into her head to be honest on her own, ruining all Loki's plans? He should have made his move sooner.

But he schooled his face to show concern as he went to her and took her hands. "Jane? What troubles you, my dear?"

Her distressed dark eyes searched his face. "Loki... I'm pregnant."

Loki had expected anything but that. He stood frozen, staring at her.

"And I'm almost sure that you are the father. Not Thor."

It took a few tries for Loki to find his voice. "How... how can you...."

Her pretty face turned pink. "Don't you remember? That afternoon with the honey? And the strawberries? When you made all those doppelgangers and had them-" She stopped, turning pinker.

Of course he remembered. Jane had fallen asleep almost the instant they were done, and had slept so soundly he had thought he was going to have to carry her to her chambers, which would have led to questions he did not care to answer just then. When he did manage to rouse her, she had stumbled half-asleep along the corridors of the palace on his arm. Everyone had assumed that she had drunk too much mead, not something she was known to do. The entire episode had been quite out of character for her. Loki had assumed their excessive adventurousness that afternoon that had been the cause, but perhaps not.

Loki had heard stories of conception making its effects known immediately, but had thought them nonsense.

Unless - could it have to do with their differing species? There had been quite a few spawn from human-Aesir couplings over the centuries, but Loki had never heard of a half-human, half-Jotun child. Perhaps foolishly, it had never occurred to him that any such thing was even possible. 

"Sit down," he ordered curtly, too agitated for his usual charm. She complied, taken aback, and Loki fell to one knee for better access to her belly. He placed one hand on her abdomen, closed his eyes, and sent a tendril of his seiðr into her. 

It _was_ his child. His son. The offspring of his Aesir form, that was why it had been possible. He would have to mate in his Jotun form to father a Jotun child. 

"I should have...." Jane let out one of those little laughs with which she tried, unsuccessfully, to cover nervousness. She always had turned girlish when something flustered her. "But I was told so many times that Asgardians aren't very fertile, Thor and I have been married for nearly two hundred years and we never...."

Loki interrupted her stammerings. "He's healthy."

"Of course Thor is... oh! You mean the baby? It's a boy? What else can you tell?"

"He'll be quite handsome. He's going to look just like his mother." Might have been interesting had the boy been green-eyed and raven-haired - or blue-skinned and red-eyed. Loki's spoiled elder brother, his faithless lover would have been thoroughly humiliated in the eyes of all Asgard. Asgard's prince and greatest warrior, cuckolded by the Jotun foundling, by a beardless sorcerer who preferred to do tricks instead of battle, by the _ergi_ who had used to lie beneath him! And then - Loki's brain stuttered at that, refused to form the next thought.

Jane licked her lips, then met his eyes. "Loki, I think... I think we should tell Thor. He'll be hurt but it isn't fair to you. You should be allowed to be a father to your own child."

As soon as she said the words, in a flash Loki saw the entire life of the Lokison. 

The boy would be born with a cloud over his head. With a precious few exceptions - his own kin - every adult would look at him with _waiting_ in their eyes. Watching for him to go bad. To turn Jotun. To be sly and deceitful like his father. No matter how good and honest his natural inclinations, his veracity and his generous gestures would be viewed with suspicion. Whatever kindnesses he offered the world would be scrutinized for tricks and traps and ulterior motives, until eventually frustration drove him to put them there. And as he grew old enough to understand his father's history, he would carry his father's guilt with him and spend his life thrashing about striving to cleanse himself of it, to be so perfect that the universe would forgive him for having such a wicked father. 

If the Lokison's natural inclination was to be even slightly selfish, even slightly lawless, then even the petty misdeeds of childhood would be seized upon as vindication for the judgment all had already made of him. The child would overhear murmurs that blood would tell. Every tiny trespass he made, he would see satisfaction in the eyes of everyone who had been certain all along that any son of Loki could only ever be rotten. If he made more than a few transgressions - if he even caused only so much mischief as every other child in the history of the universe had - all would nod sagely and watch for his inevitable descent into madness and evil. The Nine Realms would never believe he was not well on the road to ruin from the day he took his first toddling steps, and who could resist fulfilling such expectations?

If the Lokison's natural inclination was truly wicked, what hope was there for him? When his father tried to explain to him that there were limits, some things too evil for even a villainous god to do, the child would smirk and remind him of attempting to wipe out the Jotnar, of sending the Destroyer after his own foster brother, of slaying his own birth father, of unleashing an alien army upon Midgard. How could a father with so much red in his ledger convince an iniquitous child of the merit of scruples? The boy would see such things as a con game, his father's admittedly few principles as weakness that held him back from taking everything he wished for. And any early forays into evil-doing he made would be treated by the Realms as the fulfillment of his fixed destiny. He would wreak more havoc than his father ever had - surpassing his father as every son wishes to do. Inevitably heroes would arise to put an end to his reign of terror, and sooner or later the Lokison would have made enough enemies that he could no longer stand against them, and he would be defeated, perhaps executed, at the least imprisoned and dishonored. And no one would be in the least surprised that a Lokison should meet such an ignominious fate.

But a Thorson... now, that was another matter. And Loki could see the fate of a Thorson just as clearly as he could that of a Lokison.

A Thorson would grow surrounded by people who expected the best of him. He would bask in his father's reflected glory - Loki knew from experience that was a vastly more pleasant thing than a brother's. Everywhere the child looked there would be people ready to dote upon him, to protect him, to do everything that had never been done for Loki save by his adoptive mother. Every little triumph the child made, from his first step, would be praised as proof of the child's budding wondrousness. Any talents he had would be recognized, cultivated, admired. Even if those talents were not the most favored by Asgard - magic, for example. Loki could be honest with himself, if with no one else, and admit that Thor had learned from Loki's tribulations. Thor would respect magical talent in his child as he had not in his brother, and would insist that everyone else do the same. The child would have a father who could never dream of being aught but fiercely affectionate to his son, no matter what the son's nature was. Any sign of moral virtues the boy showed would be so noticed and praised and encouraged that they would flower almost inevitably. Any inborn flaws would be dismissed as impurities in the material, there for the express purpose of being refined out of the child as he grew, as Thor's recklessness had been refined out of him, resulting in a wiser man than he would have been had he had no lessons to learn.

And Loki. Loki would be the boy's uncle.

And that, Loki saw at once, was infinitely more promising. What child couldn't do with a wicked uncle? An uncle who understood what it was to sometimes be less than perfect. An uncle who could be relied on to help one out of scrapes without tattling. Who could hear shameful secrets without vaporing about them and instead offer some useful advice that would be far more helpful than what one's hopelessly good father would prescribe. Who could sometimes take one on a bit of an escapade, help one make just a little bit of mischief, without committing one to a lifetime of it. Who would leave one secure in the knowledge that the straight and narrow path was still there, guarded by a virtuous father and mother, just a few steps away, waiting for one to return from a little detour.

Damn, and Loki had been looking forward to not having to behave so well for much longer. To not having to keep his mischief on such a short leash. To not playing hero in his brother's tiresome adventures. Not that he had had no fun at all, but he was ready for some greater sport than scaring people with illusory snakes. But he was going to have to continue to restrain himself, not do anything that would upset people enough to cast him out of polite society again. (Invading Midgard again was probably out, damn it all.) If he was going to be on hand to be the best uncle in the Nine Realms, he was going to have to be... _good._

Loki shuddered.

"Loki?" Jane's hand was caressing the side of his face. She bit her lip, regretful. "I think we should tell him today, it's not right to draw it out. And pretty soon he'll start to notice, I'm already starting to get sick in the mornings, just for the last couple of days-"

He ignored her chatter, lost for a moment in memories. All those years ago, Thor had enticed Loki away from evil with his body. Then he had taken that away and foolishly believed that his brotherly affection would be enough to keep Loki on the side of "good".

It wasn't. Only the scheme, the hope of ruining Thor's life and that of the temptress who had lured him away from Loki, had done it. But now, all his plans were set awry by this hapless Janejarson who was going to need Loki around to make sure the other grownups didn't muck things up too badly, to make sure the boy himself didn't stray too far down the wrong path. No one else in the family knew how to spot such things, how to head them off. 

Sitting very still, his hand spread over his mistress's abdomen, mere inches away from where his son was stirring to life, Loki realized that he was at last defeated.

"Loki? Why don't-" Jane drew a breath, looking apprehensive and affectionate. "Why don't we go and find him now? And tell him?" She faltered. "I can't tell him alone, maybe it's cowardly but I really need you-"

"Tell him what?" Loki shook his head with a rueful chuckle. "Your mathematics is faulty, my dear." He smiled up at her. "The child is Thor's."

Her eyes widened. "Thor's? Are you sure? But - that time with the strawberries - the way I crashed after-"

He shook his head again. "Old wives' tales. No mother feels the effects so swiftly. There is no fooling a sorcerer of my powers." He rose and sat beside her, looked into her eyes, caressed her face tenderly. Called regret and love into his eyes. "Jane, my love... we will have to stop this. For the sake of your son. Of Thor's son."

"You're sure?"

He kissed her gently, briefly. For the last time. "There is no doubt. I think I shall enjoy being an uncle."

As vengeance went, he had done worse.


End file.
